


I'm Here. I'm Okay.

by Areias



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Iron dad and Spider son, Peter Parker Whump, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sick Peter Parker, Whump, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areias/pseuds/Areias
Summary: After Avengers 4, after everyone was brought back, Tony and Bruce devised a memory suppressant in hopes of sparing Peter from the trauma. But when that stopped working, Tony and Peter must learn to heal together.





	1. Afraid to Fall Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always wanted to explore Peter’s PTSD, but my other fic doesn’t allow me to do that, so I just started a new WIP. Will be from both Tony and Peter’s perspectives. This first chapter is just setting the tone, so it’s far from finished.

Peter spent most of the first week sleeping. He was awake for only an hour or two, here or there, which he spent in some kind of discombobulated stupor. He was faintly aware of Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner running constant tests on him, and May to their side — watching, worrying, crying.

Peter didn’t quite understand everything just yet. The last thing he really remembered was jumping through a bunch of magical, well, portals (but they were all yellow, instead of one blue one yellow) and kicking some tall purple alien called Thanos. After that, it was just fragmented images that refused to come together to form a coherent reel, and faded sensations — pain, fear, discomfort; some flashy lights, loud noises.

And then there was just darkness — darkness, silence, and terror.

Objectively, Peter knew what had happened. He’d managed to glimpse pictures and videos of the Dusting, as the media called it, because it was practically unavoidable. He saw people just collapsing, disintegrating, fading away. It horrified him, yet fascinated him more — was that what he’d experienced?

But then May found out he’d been watching those news reports and just _freaked_ out, and when she freaked out, Peter freaked out. To make things worse, apparently May and Ms. Potts — Mrs. Stark, rather — were on a private number basis now. May called her, and an hour later the TV was removed from his room, leaving Peter with nothing but the impenetrable darkness of his memories.

Peter tried to pierce that oblivion which surrounded him; tried to force his mind to remember. But the more he tried, the more tired he felt, and before long he would get a massive headache. It actually got so bad one time that he puked, which almost gave May a heart attack. So after that he just stopped.

So Peter started asking questions. He wanted to know how and why the Dusting happened, and why it happened to _him_ , and why he didn’t remember any of it. He first tried May, but gave up because she kind of just sobbed and touched his face and refused to answer, and Peter wound up crying with her without really knowing why, and later it just became too difficult to ask her anything. Then he tried Happy, who he heard had shared the same experience — except, like him, Happy didn’t remember much of it. Finally he tried Mrs. Stark, but in the few instances when she did drop in, she was so brisk and business-like that Peter never really worked up the nerves to broach the topic.

Which left the man himself, Tony Stark. After all, if anyone knew about the Dusting, it had to be the guy who ended up bringing about the Reversal, right?

Peter knew he dropped by, because May said as much, and because sometimes when he woke up, he could kind of retrace the sensation of fingers in his hair, or a soft low voice, or his hand being held but not having the strength to squeeze back. The problem was, Peter could never catch the man when he was actually awake and lucid. This went on for a day or two until Peter finally gave up, and resigned himself to the fact that he was going to get out of bed one day with enough strength to stay awake for more than two hours, and everyone was going to give him _answers_.

There were all sorts of lines and fluids going into him, but on the fifth day Peter was finally allowed to eat through his mouth, after confirming for the sixth time that, yes, he farted that morning. It was a good day, even if May’s meatloaf had to be ground into pulp before anyone let Peter ingest it. Peter even stayed awake long enough to watch the sunset.

Peter woke up the next day to a beaming, tearing face. He squinted, still groggy, and was suddenly dragged to a sitting position.

“Careful with him,” he heard someone say, before he was crushed in a hug.

“Ned,” he croaked in belated recognition, wrapping his right arm around the much larger boy.

Ned didn’t really say anything. Just sort of sob-babbled about how he’s missed him, about everything that has happened, and asking whether or not this meant he was now a year above Peter.

“Hey,” Peter said as he patted his best friend on the back. “Hey, Ned.”

“And me?” came a quiet, snarky voice.

Peter turned his head to see MJ, standing about three feet from the bed. She smiled and gave him the finger, like her usual aloof self, but it was completely unsuccessful because she’s got tears streaming down her face, and her eyes were the level of puffy you’d only get after literal _days_ of crying.

Peter felt his heart lurch. With some effort, he lifted his left arm in invitation.

MJ hesitated a little. But then she shrugged and rushed forward and buried her face in Peter’s shoulder, and he pressed both of them close, and the three of them shared the warmest, most awkward group hug in the history of group hugs.

They ended up spending three days at the compound. Peter tried his best to be a good host — he played board games and cards when his brain could handle it, and binged movies when he couldn’t. They chatted to catch up to a _year’s_ worth of events. It was still hard to wrap his mind around it sometimes — to Peter, it had only been a couple days; to his friends, it had been a gruesome, hopeless year.

All the same, they never asked him about what actually happened, on _that_ day. And when he tried to ask them, they just looked at each other uncomfortably and changed the topic. Peter tried to not be bothered by it, but it gnawed at him, especially as his body gained strength and he had more hours each day to think about it. Yeah, it was really good to see his friends and hear about their lives, but he was _so_ done with everyone keeping secrets from him.

~~ **————————————————————** ~~

It wasn’t a sudden thing. Mostly fleeting images — being punched, being thrown down to the ground, trying to get some metal gauntlet off. Saving aliens. It came to him in dreams at first, which he desperately grasped at when he woke up. He was almost afraid they wouldn’t come back, but they did, and grew clearer, stronger. Before long, he was able to recollect bits and pieces even when he was awake.

Peter was absolutely thrilled. He started to push into that boundary again, even if each attempt still left him aching and nauseous. Slowly, the mist in his mind begrudgingly retreated, giving Peter back his precious memories one image at a time. His physical condition seemed to be coming back at an exponential rate as well, and with each passing day he felt more like himself. He also resolved to keep his recovery from everyone else, which admittedly made him feel a little bad, but _they_ had brought this upon themselves by being so secretive in the first place.

Then, ten days after the Reversal, it happened for the first time.

Peter had been dreaming about that day again. He went through the events relaxed and comfortable, like watching a favorite film for the tenth time, or like taking the backseat as his body took him on a wild but predictable rollercoaster ride. He saw himself notice the giant donut ship appear above Manhattan, saw Ned distracting everyone so he could go and help. Mr. Stark was already on the scene, because obviously he would be, fighting some Draconian rip-off from Dungeons and Dragons. Before they could finish the fight, though, Peter was told to save a wizard with a necklace (because D&D, why not).

He knew what would happen next. He got beamed up to the space ship. Mr. Stark got a bit mad. They saved the wizard. Mr. Stark _made him an actual Avenger!!_ But then they crashed the ship, and met up with some dude from Missouri, a really scary antenna alien lady, and The Rock but with tattoos. Mr. Stark never quite explained why they needed to stop this guy called Thanos, but everyone knew it was for the good of the universe, and Peter gave it his all.

Peter liked these dreams. He was pretty cool in these dreams — he was brave, he fought hard, he saved people. He was the embodiment of what Spider-Man was supposed to be, through and through. He sat back and let the dream take him to the big fight, the one with everyone pinning the alien down and trying to take his gauntlet. They almost had it, but the dude from Missouri heard something about someone called Gamora, and everything went into chaos. Peter didn’t blame him, though — he knew he wouldn’t have kept his cool either, if he came face to face with Uncle Ben’s murderer.

He expected the dream to stop after that. They always did, and he’d always wake up, wanting to live in it for a while longer. So when it continued after Thanos disappeared in a portal, Peter was confused. He watched as the dream took him through brand new memories, of the moments after the battle; he was helping Mr. Stark get back up to his feet, they were taking stock of their options on the alien planet…

That was when he realized he was going to get his memories back, the rest of it, or however much he could take. He almost let out a whoop of delight.

Then the alien antenna woman disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Peter didn’t even have time to feel shock when, in barely ten seconds, The Rock and the dude both disappeared.

He didn’t even have time to notice the wizard disappearing.

Because he knew he was. He knew with every atom of his being, every hair telling him danger, _danger_ , **_danger_** he was going to die, he was going to disappear, like everyone else, and he hadn’t even had time to call home to May to let her know he was okay, nor to respond to that kiss MJ had given him, and it was danger danger _DANGER_ , and Peter didn’t know where he was going, it was dark and there was —

Oh, god. Oh no. Oh no, no, he could feel it, his fingertips, his body was trying to hold itself together, but he could feel the molecular structure of himself disintegrating, he wanted to fight it, he _needed_ to fight it, he had to see his friends, he had to see May, he wanted to spend more time with Mr. Stark, he’d just become an _Avenger_ for crying out loud, but it was massive, empty, abysmal, something like Hell made manifest and Peter didn’t want to go, he didn’t want to be alone —

Suddenly he was hugging Mr. Stark, just holding on to him like he was the last solid thing in the world, like he was the life line, the only hope — hanging on by the last thread. The man said something to him, and Peter begged, he begged, he didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay in a world where there were so many more things to do, stuff to talk about, cool things to invent…

And Mr. Stark held him, but Peter’s body couldn’t really register the man’s arms because his mind was still screaming danger, like the worst stomach flu and fever and headache all rolled into one. And the _pain_. Peter tried to hold onto Mr. Stark as tight as he could, but he felt every nerve fiber getting torn apart, and it was a billion times worse than when he fell off his bike and broke a bone, a million times worse than that time he got shot in the stomach… He saw the man trying to say something, felt his grip even though his senses were beginning to numb.

That was when Peter saw the _fear_ , the helpless, _horrifying_ terror in Mr. Stark’s eyes. And that was when he knew no one could ever save him. Not even Iron Man, the genius billionaire who always had a plan. Peter was alone. He would always be alone, he couldn’t save everyone and now he couldn’t be saved…

Peter’s vision was beginning to get blurry — he felt tiny, helpless, unable to do anything, like he had when Uncle Ben died in his arms, when he was crying and trying to staunch the flow of blood. He saw the familiar pitch black boiling below him like a tar pit of all the ugliest memories he ever had, and he tried, he really did, he fought so hard but he couldn’t get that gauntlet off in time and because of that he was going to disappear, disappear, disappear…

It was too much. Peter was exhausted. He couldn’t fight it anymore, the nightmare that had grabbed hold of his feet and was dragging him down, down to where no one will ever know or remember him. He should have done a better job. He wasn’t strong enough. Like that time on the ferry, like this time with the gauntlet — if only he’d been stronger. If only he’d thought things through more. He shouldn’t have made May worry. He shouldn’t have inconvenienced all his friends. He shouldn’t have thought he could possibly help Mr. Stark.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked out. He wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. Maybe it was for not trying harder. Maybe it was for leaving the people he cared about before he was ready to leave them. Maybe it was for making Mr. Stark worried.

_And if you died… I’d feel like that’s on me._

_Ah_ , Peter thought. So that’s why he apologized. He looked at Mr. Stark and wanted to say more, to say it would never be his fault, to say it has been so much fun being Spider-Man, being _Peter_ , with the greatest mentor he could ever hope to have helping him along the way.

_Thank you_ , he wanted to say, but he never got the chance.

As his world disintegrated into ash, Peter Parker bolted upright in his bed.

~~ **————————————————————** ~~

He tried to hide the incident. The next morning, when May got him breakfast, he smiled and finished it and told her how good it was, but he had to use his other hand just to steady the fork.

The rest of the day he spent watching movies or reading the books MJ brought him. He tried his best to focus, but randomly, again and again, he would find himself back on that desolate planet, the roof and walls collapsing around him, dusted away, and he would be alone, fighting and kicking but still being dragged toward the ultimate doom, helpless.

And then he would snap out of it, panting, his clothes drenched in sweat, his knuckles white on the page. He felt awful because one of MJ’s books was ruined this way, the cover torn by his super strength.

“Peter?” May had asked, walking in at that moment. “Is everything okay?”

Peter smiled, hiding the book under his covers. “Yeah. Yeah. That smells delicious, by the way.”

May beamed. “It’s meatloaf day,” she said, setting the tray down. “Honey, are you sure you’re alright? You look pale.”

“Absolutely fine,” Peter said with forced joviality. “I’m getting better every day!”

He was lucky he didn’t have other visitors today, for it drained him to act. He managed to wolf down the lunch in record time, and convince May that he needed a nap. After she left, he went to the bathroom and  threw everything up. He didn’t understand why it disturbed him so much.  _It’s all over_ , he told himself, splashing water on his face. _All in the past_.

When evening came, he told May he had to go to sleep early. It felt rotten to lie to her, but he had no choice. He didn’t know what to do, what was happening, and the last thing he wanted was for her to worry. He needed to be strong for her. He hugged her good night, and spent the next three hours curled up in his blankets, awake and shivering.

From that day forward, Peter became afraid to fall asleep.


	2. Pitter-Patter

Peter figured it was normal for him to take a sudden interest in his syllabus. After all, senior year was starting in less than a month, Reversal or no, and it’s been a long while since he’d done any school work. He had SATs and college applications to worry about; he had to hit the ground running.

… at least that’s what he told May. That’s what he told himself. That was the excuse he’d grabbed onto when he holed himself up in the compound library that day with an entire pot of the blackest, most disgusting coffee he’d ever tasted. It gave him palpitations and made him all jittery, and he had the urge to wash his tongue after each gulp, but it did its job—it kept him awake.

He decided to start with the lessons he’d missed; the ones that happened after the Dusting. Spanish. English Lit. Chemistry. Ned had let him borrow notes. He flipped through his friend’s sometimes chaotic scribbles, chuckling when he saw the small doodles on the margins. Then he stopped.

In front of him was an entire page filled with blotched drawings of the Spider-Man logo. Ned must have drawn the same thing twenty, thirty, _fifty_ times, then redrawn it and erased, redrawn and erased, until even the untouched spots of the page was a dull uniform gray. Some pencil-marks had torn through the paper.

Peter sat very still, and in the desk next to his he saw Ned, sitting alone at the lab bench—at _their_ lab bench—sketching out the logo again and again until he got it right, until he didn’t feel like he was about to cry anymore, and it was Peter’s fault, Peter who left, Peter who’d told him to distract the whole bus…

Peter slammed the notebook shut, his breathing fast and loud and ragged in the empty space. The table shook under his strength, and he was glad Mr. Stark had built everything with superhuman users in mind.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

When he felt himself calm down enough, he put the notebook back with the dozen others. He would return them all later. He groped at the sea of textbooks and grabbed the first one he could reach.

Chemistry? Good. He liked chemistry.

He liked chemistry because he liked working in a world where he was the master, where he knew how things were supposed to be. A reaction was always guaranteed given the correct reagents, catalysts, and conditions. There were no surprises, no hollow pit lurking behind the mundane. He found the last chapter he remembered learning about, and dove head first into the work.

He liked chemistry, because his hand shook less when he wrote out the equilibriums.

* * *

He managed to finish most of the oxidation-reduction study questions by the time noon rolled around, and decided to give himself a break. He gulped down another cup of the now-cold coffee and walked over to the window. The sky was set thick with grey clouds, billowing and churning with the hot, saturated air of a summer thunderstorm. Peter thought the weather fitted him; restless and anxious without reason, boiling without a true breaking point, like something waiting to happen. He sat down on the nearest couch and stared, mesmerized.

It didn’t take long for the rain to come. Low rumbles of thunder echoed through the air, audible even through the state-of-the-art sound insulation walls. He listened for a while to the pitter patter of the rain on the windows, observing each droplet of water as they slid down the glass, before closing his eyes and wishing he could breathe the air outside, something to tell him his world was real.

He hated how he was trembling. He hated how clear his thoughts were, now that he wasn’t under the strange haze which clouded his mind over the past ten days. He hated the way he now found new meaning in May’s hugs, in his friends’ looks—he had broken them, god, he had been _dead_ and for a whole _year_ and when he came back he didn’t even stop to think how much that had affected them and only wanted his _stupid_ _memories_ back like a selfish asshole—

He hopped onto the ceiling to stop himself from punching anything. He walked the tiles, touched the lights with his feet to feel their heat. The storm geared up to full force outside, and he plastered himself to the glass, still upside-down, staring as if he could lose himself in the heart of chaos.

“Take it back,” he said, his breath misting up the glass. “I don’t want to remember _. I don’t want to remember_.”

Only the pitter-patter answered him. Always the pitter-patter, and the thunder, and the deafening guilt.

* * *

Mrs. Stark and Happy joined them for dinner that night, and Peter wished they hadn’t. They gave him hugs and asked about his recovery. Peter smiled and told them he was getting stronger, and they talked about the crazy weather, and going back to school, and the meal.

Peter wondered how he hadn’t noticed it earlier—they were all talking like they were navigating a landmine. Mentions about the wedding got glossed over. Any specifics about the prior year was a big no-no. More than once he tried to ask Happy about the Dusting, and what he’d felt, but each time that conversation got shut down before Peter could even blink.

For a brief moment the anger was enough to overpower the great hollow pit. Peter even considered calling them out for it.

_Stop that_ , he would say, slamming the table. They would all fall silent and look at him. _Don’t you see?_ he would continue, almost seething. _I remember. I remember feeling my fingers turning into dust. I remember being scared, being terrified, and it doesn’t help that I don’t know what happened to me, so maybe we should just fucking talk about it so I don’t have to be scared anymore—_

“Seconds, Peter?” May asked, heaping on another slice of pork chop before he could answer. Peter stared at the piece of meat on his plate, before mumbling a thank-you.

Happy commented on how her cooking was better than he’d remembered, and May smiled so warmly that Peter wanted to cry. He dug his nails in his palm, hard enough that he was sure he drew blood. The fork bent in his grip.

_I’m never going to tell them_ , he thought, suddenly exhausted. He looked around, at May, at Mrs. Stark, at Happy. They were laughing about some anecdote. He made himself laugh too, which was easier than he’d expected.

Because in that moment, in a room filled with people who loved him… he felt utterly alone.

And that was kind of funny.

* * *

He hadn’t planned on sleeping, but he’d ran out of coffee, and it’d started raining again. The chorus of raindrops was like some sort of lullaby tugging at his eyelids. Freshly showered, he found himself more relaxed than he meant to be as he laid in darkness on his bed.

Before he knew it, he was on the dust planet. He watched in abject horror, unable to stop anything, shivering even in his dreams. He was fighting, again; smashed down, again; thrown off, again. He was losing, again; weak, again; worthless, again.

In pain, again. Hopeless, again. Trying to say sorry, again.

He was disappearing.

_Again_.

He couldn’t escape. He knew this was a dream, he had to escape, but he couldn’t, and it was sucking him in, down, away. He saw May, sobbing and sobbing over his picture. He saw Ned drawing Spider-Man logos in his notes. He saw MJ tearing out another page in her sketchbook. He watched Mr. Stark’s face disappear, again, again, _again_.

They all reached for him, grabbing at him with their hands. _How could you leave us?_ they shouted at him. It’s your fault, _your_ fault—

Peter tried to reach back. _No_ , he tried to say. _No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I tried_. His fingers brushed May’s. He tried to catch her but she dissolved into dust, and then Ned dissolved, and then MJ dissolved, and he was grasping at the void—

Someone yanked on his arms. It was Mr. Stark.

“You’re alright,” he said.

_No_ , Peter thought. _No, no, I’ll hurt you too, sir. No, stay away, sir, stay_ away—

Mr. Stark grabbed his hand, but Peter could feel himself disappearing again, and Mr. Stark was disappearing too. He begged, he didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay here, stay alive—

He screamed into the cool conditioned air of his room, thrashing and struggling. Something was holding him, tight and close, but it was terrifying and he didn’t want to go—

“Pete, Pete, listen to me, you’re okay,” a voice said, urgently. “Kid. No, you’re okay, I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere—”

“I don’t want to go, please, Mr. Stark—”

“I know, I know,” the voice said, calm but with an undercurrent that threatened to break, “I’m right here, you’re not going anywhere, you hear me? You’re _not going anywhere_.”

Slowly Peter’s vision kicked in. He was in his bed, trembling, shivering. His cheeks were wet. He smelled the soft scent of flowers and daisies, he’d always thought it was an unexpected smell for such a brilliant energetic man—

“Mr. Stark?” he whispered.

“I’m here,” the man replied. “I’m here, Pete, you’re okay.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, and this time his voice broke, and he hugged the warm body in front of him with all his might. Mr. Stark’s hand rubbed circles on his back, gentle and soothing, just like how Uncle Ben used to when Peter came home bullied.

“It’s me, kid. I’m here. You’re here. You’re okay.”

It was still raining, and Peter was glad because the sound and the darkness afforded him some dignity. Mr. Stark was saying into his ear to breathe in, breathe out, and Peter heard the man doing so with him. Peter trembled as he focused on the task, one at a time. In, out. In, out. Finally his heartbeat returned to a more or less normal pace.

He felt Mr. Stark letting go, and panic welled up in him again.

“Easy, kid,” the man said softly. “Easy. I’m not leaving ya. Just gonna take off the armor.” He chuckled. “You’d have crushed me to pulp if I didn’t wear it.”

Peter panted and made some incomprehensible sounds before letting go slowly. There was a sort of scuttling noise, and then Peter felt Mr. Stark’s skin soften as the armor retreated to his chest piece. No longer pressed against each other, the arc reactor cast everything in a comforting blue.

“You gotta promise me you’re not gonna squash me, Pete,” the man said softly, ruffling Peter’s hair.

Peter didn’t respond, just nodded and hugged back, gentler this time. Mr. Stark kept a hand in his hair, running in soothing circles. Peter laid his head on his mentor’s shoulder. There was still a lump in his throat, though as the minutes passed he felt it dissolving little by little.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered when he thought he could trust his voice.

Mr. Stark froze. His hand stopped, his muscles went rigid. Peter heard the man’s breath quicken, and his arms wrapped a bit tighter around him. It took a minute before Mr. Stark relaxed again, more or less.

“Don’t say that,” he said, with such gravity Peter was almost sure he was angry. “I don’t—I can’t hear you say that. Not right now, probably not in the next few years.”

“But—”

“Just… don’t, kid. Okay?”

Peter nodded. “Okay.”

They were silent for some more minutes, listening to the rain, before Mr. Stark took a breath.

“When did you remember?”

Peter bit his lips. “Last—no, two nights ago. It was… it was in a dream, and I always remembered parts of it, but that time I felt—I saw myself—”

“Shh. Neither of us needs that right now.” Peter felt Mr. Stark shake his head. “Why didn’t you tell someone? Tell May? Tell me?”

There was a tiny spark of indignation when Peter answered. “I hardly ever see you,” he pointed out. “You haven’t—I think this is the first time you even _talked_ to me, since…” he trailed off, unable to hide the hurt in his voice.

The man winced. “I know,” he said. “I was trying to keep you safe.”

Peter didn’t immediately understand. “Keep me safe—what? By ignoring me?”

“From your memories, Pete,” Mr. Stark said quietly. “From dreams. From _this_. I thought—I thought if you saw me, you might remember again.”

“But you don’t know that! I mean I asked Happy and he said he doesn’t remember anything, so I don’t get why you thought _I_ would remember—”

“ _Because I saw it with my own fucking eyes!_ ” Mr. Stark snapped, his voice suddenly high and close to shattering.

Peter was silent, too stunned by the tone to respond. Mr. Stark was panting.

“I saw it, Pete,” he said, hoarse. “And yours… yours was different than everyone else’s. I don’t know—I can’t explain it. But you _knew_ what was going to happen. You felt it, you lasted longer, you were in _pain_. And I knew, I _knew_ when you came back you would remember it, and I just didn’t want you to feel that… ever, ever again.”

Peter felt the trembles in the man’s frame. “I just—I failed to protect you the first time. And I tried to, this time, but now… I just failed again.”

Then Mr. Stark let out a sort of guttural, breathy sound, and moments later Peter realized it was a sob.

“Oh,” he said stupidly, not knowing where to place his hands. “Mr. Stark, no, it’s not your fault, I didn’t—I’m sor—er, I mean—”

He could only gape as the man broke down in front of him, and then it was _Mr. Stark_ who clung to him, _Mr. Stark_ who grasped at the his back, desperate for the warmth, the tangible _there_ -ness… not ash, not ash, _never again ash_.

Peter wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but finally the man gave a low chuckle, and loosened his embrace around the boy.

“It’s alright, kid,” he said. “I’m alright.” He shook his head. “Come on, you should go back to bed.”

Peter wasn’t sure if he could, and the thought of being left alone when Mr. Stark left was more terrifying than he cared to admit. But then the man must have sensed something, because he chuckled.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” he said, ruffling Peter’s hair. “I’ve had attacks too, kid, and if yours are anything like mine, you’re not getting another wink of sleep tonight.” Even in the darkness, Peter could make out his grin. “What do you say? Let’s watch a movie? Your pick.”

Twenty minutes later, as the two of them munched on microwaved popcorn in the compound’s home theatre, _Beetlejuice_ playing on the screen, Peter felt safe enough to smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” he said.

“No, kid,” the man replied, somehow hearing him above the noise of the movie. “Thank _you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned for more chapters, but this seemed like a good place to end. However, while moving this to FFnet I found some WIPs that I think are pretty good, and I’ll try to adapt them to this story. Expect an update soon!
> 
> I also have a crossover with exclusively MCU characters, set in the world of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. Check it out under my profile if that interests you!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Feedback is very welcome! Story also under [saieras](http://saieras.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Feel free to follow or chat me up!


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